


cold for years

by PurpleButtons0203



Category: The Penumbra Podcast
Genre: Age Regression/De-Aging, Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Ancient Technology, Angst, Angst and Hurt/Comfort, Benzaiten Steel (mentioned) - Freeform, Brief suicidal ideation, Canonical Character Death, Childhood Trauma, Do not repost, Implied/Referenced Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Implied/Referenced Child Abuse, Multi, Panic Attacks, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Sarah Steel (Mentioned) - Freeform, Suicidal Thoughts, Underage Drinking, bespa..... is my mom, do not copy to another site, its MY fic I get to choose the vespa characterization, its all bullshit lmao, juno......s a d, the graphic violence isnt gonna come until much later but be prepared yall, the working title for this fic is 'deaged juno sad times yeah boi', they're very brief but i'm tagging them just to be safe, this is a MEAN story designed to HURT your FEELINGS
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-10-27
Updated: 2019-11-11
Packaged: 2021-01-04 20:27:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,974
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21203591
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PurpleButtons0203/pseuds/PurpleButtons0203
Summary: She moves, unconsciously, around Vespa, altering her pacing to keep out of the way of her short tempered wife and her wife’s current, extremely important job of taking diagnostics of Juno’s body.Juno’s very small, very much child-sized body. Because Juno is a child.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> hey before you all yell at me for starting a new wip when i have like four other stories to write may i remind you that a) i can do what i want forever and b) you should listen to the penumbra podcast
> 
> beta'd by my lovely girlfriend Vodkassassin, without whom this fic wouldnt exist bc i use her as a sounding board basically every day for every single idea that passes through my lesbian goblin brain
> 
> if you wanna scream at me im on tumblr @purple-sea-dragon

Peter leans against the wall, observing from the sidelines as Buddy paces in front of the medbay cot, rambling out loud to a stoic Jet and a trembling, frowning Rita. She moves, unconsciously, around Vespa, altering her pacing to keep out of the way of her short tempered wife and her wife’s current, extremely important job of taking diagnostics of Juno’s body.

Juno’s very small, very much child-sized body. Because Juno is a child. 

“And you didn’t see _ anything _!?” Buddy exclaimes, momentarily pausing her pacing to point one well manicured finger right in Jet’s face. The largest member of their crew remains as stoic as ever. 

“That is correct. As I said, we were in the middle of the vault, Juno grabbed the artifact, and then there was a flash of light and he was small. I picked up the artifact, picked up Juno, and abandoned our predetermined escape route in favor of a more direct exit.” 

“_Out the thirtieth story window!? _”

“It was more direct.”

Buddy takes several deep breaths, visibly composing herself, before she turns around and addresses Juno with a calm, unaffected smile, like they all hadn’t seen her almost lose it just a second ago.

“Juno, darling,” He shrinks into himself slightly, appearing somehow smaller than before, if that’s even possible, “do you know where you are?” Juno shakes his head. “Do you know who we are, any of us?” He shakes his head again, very interested in his kneecaps. He kicks his little feet back and forth softly, bouncing his heels off the metal framing of the cot.

“Sorry,” he murmurs, in a voice much, much higher than Peter has ever heard come out of his mouth. The word comes out with a slight lisp. He sees Rita visibly melt, her worried shaking subsiding just the tiniest bit in the face of the pure, uncut adorable that is a tiny Juno Steel. 

And the detective truly is adorable. Peter isn’t well versed in anything related to children, but even he knows that Juno couldn’t have been older than ten at the most, and that’s being generous. His usual unruly mop of black curls is somehow even more messy than it normally is, and he frequently has to push it out of his eyes with the hand that doesn’t have an IV stuck in it. He’s almost completely lost in the large sweater that had fit him just fine earlier that morning, the sleeves rolled up several times to allow the barest hint of his fingers to poke out of them. He’s wearing a pair of his own boxers in lieu of pants, and they thankfully function rather well as a pair of knee-length shorts. His face, too, is adorable, almost cherubic in its slight roundness and the largeness of his eyes and the slightly worried frown that pulls at his mouth. He still has his characteristic scar though, running from one cheek to the other across the bridge of his nose. It looks… _ a lot _ fresher than any of them (bar Rita, perhaps) have ever seen it.

God, he has both his eyes. 

“No need to apologize, darling,” Buddy coos at him. “My name is Buddy Aurinko, and I am the captain of this ship. The woman taking your temperature is my wife, Vespa Ai. The large man who carried you here is Jet Sikuliaq, and the man leaning against the wall over there goes by Peter Ransom, at the moment. This lovely young lady here is Rita.” Juno waves, shyly, at Rita, who waves back, a bright grin momentarily overtaking her face despite her distress. 

“Where am I?” Juno asks in that small voice, eyes on Buddy even as he allows Vespa to poke and prod at him relentlessly. 

“You’re on my ship, the Carte Blanche. We’re in space, Juno, hovering above the eighth moon of Susano-o in the beta quadrant.” 

This, as it turns out, is the exact wrong thing to say to tiny Juno Steel, because he freezes, and the heart rate monitor attached to his wrist starts emitting a frantic beeping. Vespa swears softly under her breath. Peter can see the whites of Juno’s eyes from the other side of the room, and couldn’t miss the way his fingers gripped the blanket underneath him if he tried. 

“Everybody back up!” Vespa barks, and they all move out of sheer surprise if nothing else. A second later, she’s kneeling in front of Juno, who is starting to hyperventilate. 

“What’s happening?” Rita asks, almost tripping over her own words. “What’s wrong with little Mistah Steel?” 

“He’s having a _ panic attack _ , everybody _ shut up _-” Vespa nearly snarls, shrugging off her characteristic too-large coat and tossing it around Juno’s tiny, tiny shoulders. He’s swamped in the thing. If he’d been standing it would drag on the floor for several feet behind him. She pulls it close around him, trying to settle him with the weight and warmth of it. 

Vespa places one hand lightly on his shoulder and the other on his wrist, which she uses to move his palm to her sternum. “Steel, breathe with me okay? Do what I do.” She takes a deep breath, holds it for a moment, and then releases it slowly, over and over, until Juno finally begins to follow her lead, breathing deeply, and his heart monitor slows from its frantic screaming alarm to something that actually resembles a regular heartbeat. It can’t have taken more than a minute or two at most, but it feels like an eternity has passed.

“I gotta go home,” he gasps on the tail end of a breath, shaking still under Vespa’s scarred hands. “Please, I gotta- I gotta get back-”

“Unfortunately that is not possible,” Jet says, arms crossed, trying not to loom over Juno but failing because of his considerable height. “Mars is several weeks away, by which time we may or may not have found a solution for your predicament, rendering your request irrelevant either way.”

“_ Please _ ,” Tears are welling up in his big brown eyes, and Peter wants to look away, but he can’t force his muscles to move. They were all locked in on Juno, horrified, unable to avert their eyes from the tiny, trembling form on the medbay cot. “If I’m not home Mama’s gonna be mad-” He chokes on his own breath, coughing, but still trying to force out his words, pleading gaze locked on Buddy. The tears are running down his cheeks now, dripping off his chin. “If I’m not there she’s gonna take it out on Benten instead, please, please, I can’t let her hurt him instead of me, _ please- _” Buddy looks like she’d been slapped, mouth agape and eyes wide, and even Jet takes a step backwards in an uncharacteristic display of emotion, but Juno keeps barrelling on, unaware that he’s spilling secrets in his childish desperation that his older self has kept locked up so tightly for nearly four decades. “-he’s my little brother, I can’t let him get hurt just ‘cause I’m stupid and ain’t there to take it, please, I gotta go back to Mars-”

“Juno,” Vespa says, voice softer and calmer than they’ve ever heard her before, “breathe. In, out, come on.” Juno’s words stop with a great, gasping inhale, face twisted with his tears, and then he slaps his free hand over his mouth and all that comes out of him are quiet, muffled sobs. “All of you, out, now,” she murmurs, full of barely contained rage, “except Rita.”

She doesn’t have to tell him twice. Peter exits the room like his feet are burning, the sound of Juno’s small, choked sobs echoing down the hallway like laser fire after him. Buddy and Jet aren’t far behind. The medbay door closes, and then they are alone.

In the sudden silence of the hallway, Buddy’s voice is like the crack of a whip. “When Juno calms down or tires himself out, we’re going to have a family meeting about this. Kitchen. Don’t miss it. Jet,” she says, smiling a little too wide, “don’t say anything to Juno like that ever again.”

Jet nods, turning and heading for the rec room. Peter, suddenly nauseous, whirls around and strides towards his quarters without a word.

God, what a mess.

* * *

"How old are you, Steel?" is the first thing Miss Vespa asks him, after he stops crying nearly ten minutes later. She's messing around with all the buttons on the box that's apparently telling her stuff about his body, not looking at him but paying attention in the way that adults do.

"'M eight," he hiccups, rubbing his eyes with the heel of his hands. "Gonna be nine in December."

"Yeah?" she says. "That's pretty cool. You go to school? What grade're you in?"

"Just finished third grade." He lets Miss Rita hand him a juice box out of the very small refrigerator in the corner. It tastes like watermelon, which he doesn't know if he likes. He keeps drinking it anyway. "Mick's dad says that in fourth grade if you do bad enough on your tests the teachers start cutting off fingers and toes, but he also told Mick that their dog got shot fifteen times because he tried to stop a gang war, so I don't know if I believe him."

"Yeah?" she says again, and he can hear the smile in her voice even though she's facing away from him. He pulls the very big coat she gave him around his shoulders a little tighter, taking another tiny sip of his juice. Watermelon, he decides, is not nearly as good as apple, but it's miles better than grape. "I don't know if I'd believe that either."

Eventually she stops fiddling with the box and turns towards him, elbows on her knees and fingers steepled under her chin. "So, Steel, here's the thing. I don't know what your tiny, de-aged brain is telling you, but you're not actually a… kid."

"You're supposed ta be thirty nine," Miss Rita says, tapping her fingers together like she doesn't know she's doing it. She seems like a pretty nervous lady. Loud, too, big hair and big voice and big bright colors. Mama wouldn't like Miss Rita at all, so Juno likes her a lot, and only partially out of spite. "You touched this weird magic doo-hickey and now you're all little! And you don't got any of your memories, except the last time you got amnesia it was part of a plan and you were still big-"

"Rita," Miss Vespa interrupts.

"Right! Sorry. Anyways, you're supposed ta be thirty nine and I'm here tellin' you this because we hope that letting you know about all the stuff you're missing might help turn ya back to normal."

He takes a sip. "Bullshit."

"Language," Miss Vespa says, rolling her eyes.

"Fuck you," he spits, more reflex than anything. Instead of hitting him she laughs, which hasn't ever happened to him before, so he thinks he likes Miss Vespa the most.

She stands, catching his wrist. He freezes like a rabbit under a flashlight and only starts breathing again when all she does is start unwrapping the heart monitor and blood pressure cuff she had placed there earlier. He can tell she’s only pretending to not notice he did that. She leaves the IV in. He wishes she would take it out, it itches something fierce. He doesn't touch it. She's been nice so far, but that doesn't mean anything, and she's got too many very big knives for him to take his chances making her mad when he doesn't know how much she actually tolerates him and he doesn't yet know any good places to hide.

"I'm going to give you two some privacy. Don't make me regret it," she says, making for the exit. "Come get me when you're done, Rita."

"Okie dokie," Miss Rita says, pulling out her bright pink comms and opening her photo albums before Miss Vespa is even out of the room all the way. "Let's get the heavy stuff out of the way first, okay? Your mom is dead."

His world stops. Restarts. Shifts just slightly in every direction. "Promise?"

The door to the medbay slides shut.

* * *

Vespa lingers in the hallway for several minutes. When it becomes apparent that Rita and Juno are going to be okay by themselves, she slams into the kitchen with the barely-contained violence of a Jupiter-class hurricane, ignoring everyone trying to get her attention until she’s ripped through the liquor cabinet and found her favorite, mostly untouched bottle of Andorian Blue and chugged at least a couple shots worth. Usually she wouldn’t touch the stuff, her grasp on reality still occasionally tenuous enough that alcohol would just make her paranoid and anxious, but god dammit, she _ needs this_. 

“That bad, darling?” Buddy asks, smoothing a palm up and over her shoulder blades and letting her warm fingers rest underneath the straps of her tank top. Vespa heaves a massive sigh and straightens up, shrugging off her wife’s hand and shambling towards the table, where she collapses like a puppet with her strings cut.

“What a fucking mess,” she mutters bitterly, one hand clutched around the neck of the bottle and the other pulling at her hair in frustration. “God dammit. God _ fucking _ dammit.”

“How is he?” Jet asks, passing her a cup of coffee from the replicator. She drinks half of it like it’s going out of style, refills the empty space with more whisky, and finally allows Buddy to take the bottle away from her.

“He’s the most fucked up eight year old I’ve ever had the displeasure of meeting,” she growls. “He’s severely malnourished, he’s got more nutrient deficiencies than there are nutrients, he’s got _ bone bruising _ on his back and shoulders, and both of his hands show heavy scarring that’s gonna fuck up his range of motion as he gets older again. He’s got _ seventeen _ cigarette burns on his shoulders, and at least five of them are less than four days old.” She takes a deep breath and a long, _ long _ sip. “And that’s just what’s physically wrong with him.”

“That is not good,” Jet murmurs.

“Yeah no shit,” she snarls. Buddy reaches for her again, and Vespa lets her capture one of her hands and press a soft kiss to the back of her shaking knuckles. “I grabbed him one time without warning and he almost had another panic attack.” She chugs the rest of the coffee and thinks about reaching for the whiskey again. Buddy gives her that particular look that means she knows what Vespa’s thinking and isn’t going to let it happen. Vespa gives up on the idea of more alcohol for the foreseeable future. She lets her head drop onto the table with a ‘thunk’. “God, I fucking hate this.”

“I can’t imagine Juno is thrilled about it either, darling,” Buddy murmurs, looking more tired than Vespa has seen her since they reunited.

“What are we going to do?” Ransom asks, speaking for the first time since this whole debacle started. “How do we even begin to try to fix this?” His voice sounds like he’s been eating sandpaper.

“I don’t know,” Buddy sighs, “I really don’t. What were they doing when you left them, Vespa?”

She shrugs. “Rita was catching him up on the thirty one years he’s missing. Everything she knows, anyway. She started with his mom’s death. Fun lady, that one.”

Ransom looks like someone told him that his dog got shot fifteen times trying to stop a gang war. She _ does not _ smile, but it’s a near thing. “How… how did he take that?” 

“Didn’t seem all broke up about it, if you get my meaning,” she mutters into the synth wood. “I told Rita to get me when they’re done so I can finish up getting his shit fixed.”

“Why didn’t you finish that first?” Jet asks.

She rolls her eyes. Not that it has much effect, facedown on the table like she is. She puts it into her voice instead. “If I touched him any more than I already had he was gonna have some sort of breakdown. Not touched starved, probably thanks to that brother of his, but he definitely isn’t open to physical contact the way kids are supposed to be.” She sits up, looking at each of them in turn. “I cannot stress this enough: do not grab him in any way unless he’s aware it’s happening and is okay with it, or it’s an emergency. I’m serious. He has to either initiate or consent to all physical contact or else it’s probably going to trigger his panic response again, and that is the last thing we need.” She wrings some sort of acknowledgment out of each of them before she lets her gaze drop.

They sit in silence for a while longer, drinking too-weak coffee and wallowing in the secondhand misery that is the trauma of little eight-year-old Juno Steel, on display for the world to see.

Sometime later, a few handfuls of minutes that pass like an eternity, the sound of the medbay doors sliding open sounds, and their ears are greeted with the noise of Rita’s clunky heels, followed shortly by the lady herself.

“If Sarah Steel weren’t already dead I would kill her myself,” Rita declares as she rounds the corner. “Or at least ruin her credit score. I ain’t never seen him this bad in all the time I’ve known him.” She stalks over to the counter where Buddy had left the whiskey, taking a swig straight from the bottle like Vespa had nearly an hour earlier. “Well, that’s a lie, there was one time about twelve years ago, and I am not eager to repeat anything that led up to or followed that particular emotional breakdown, let me tell you what.”

“You and me both,” Vespa mutters. “My turn?” Rita nods. They switch places, Vespa rising to leave for the medbay while Rita slides into her chair.

“Ah, hold on just one sec!” Rita pulls Vespa’s empty mug across the table and pours what’s left of the whiskey into it. She holds it out to Vespa. “Take this.”

“Rita, I already-”

Rita flaps her hand. “No, no. It’s for little Mistah Steel.” They stare at her, uncomprehending. She rolls her eyes. “Drinking age in Oldtown was eight when he was growin’ up. If I know my boss-”

“Not your boss,” Buddy murmurs, a half second off, since Juno isn’t there to do it. God, it even feels wrong to hear someone else doing it.

“-and I do, he’s had a drinkin’ problem his whole life and I can guarantee you it’s already well on its way. If we don’t start controlling his intake now he’s just gonna steal it and hide it for later and get nasty about it, and it’s not gonna be pretty. He’s been a monster of a drinker for almost all of the years I’ve known him, and I don’t wanna go back ta that. So,” she gestures with the cup again, a silent demand. Vespa feels herself wilting under the formidable force of Rita’s glare, and she takes the cup.

“Are we really going to give whiskey to an eight year old child?” Ransom asks, incredulous.

“I don’t like it either, Ransom,” Vespa snaps, “but Rita knows Steel better than anyone, and if she says the kid needs alcohol to keep him from tearing apart the ship, then I guess we’re going to give him something to drink.”

“We can wean him off of it,” Rita says, sighing. Buddy slings an arm around the smaller woman’s shoulders and pulls her into her side, letting Rita rest there. “You can’t just force someone to quit cold turkey and expect them ta not get mean about it, and Juno is one of the meanest ladies I know, when he tries, and I’ve known him since he was twenty three when he was a whole lot meaner than any lady should have ta be. I can’t imagine how much worse he was as a kid, except I can, now, because he’s a kid again, and what are we supposed to _ do _-”

Vespa backs out of the kitchen as Rita breaks into incoherent sobs, the events of the day finally catching up with her. She stalks down the hall towards the infirmary, cradling the mug of whiskey in her hands, trying not to let the weight of the day press down on her back and kill her like an ant under a boot.

She only mostly succeeds.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey y'all I'm back!! So good to see you again. Y'all listened to man in glass part 2 yet? i had to change a lot of ideas for this story based on that new ep but im not even mad about it. all hail kabert
> 
> thank you to my better half, Vodkassassin, for letting me bounce ideas off of you all day every day and reading my terrible awful mean stories that exist specifically to hurt my fans emotionally. I love you my darling!!
> 
> TRIGGER WARNING for brief suicidal ideation at the very end of Juno's pov in this chapter. it's the last three sentences of his pov, you can pick it back up at the line break. it's nothing major, but if it makes you uncomfortable at all please just skip over it. also some descriptions of child abuse in Juno's pov, and a little bit of talk about disordered eating. if you want to skip it, stop reading at "how often he's going to mess up and how bad" and pick it back up again at "He sets his mug on the table". Stay safe!! I love you!!

Jet knows, in the grand scheme of things, very little about Juno Steel.

He knows the lady is thirty nine years old, and that before he joined up with Buddy’s family he had never before left Mars, and that he is light enough that Jet can pick him up like a sac of stolen creds. He knows that Juno, for a brief period, worked for Ramses O’Flaherty, and that the politician had given him one of the most expensive and invasive cybernetic prosthetic eyes on the market, and because he ripped that eye out of Juno’s head Jet knows that Juno had a twin brother named Benzaiten that had died when the two of them were just nineteen. Jet knows that Juno is a former cop, that he is an above average detective with the ear of almost every socialite in Hyperion city, and that he does not like tea, but he likes it more than being uninformed or the idea of killing another person. He knows quite a bit about how much Juno detests the idea of killing another human being. Juno wears his feelings on his face and his shoulders and his hands, worn thin through years of exposure.

Juno does not like that he wears his feelings, for all that he cannot help doing so. Jet knows this, too.

This smaller version of Juno wears his own identity like a caricature of the lady Jet has grown to respect. He’s snappish and vicious and somehow also painfully uncertain and withdrawn like a shadow of himself, quiet and nervous in a way Jet didn’t know Juno had the capacity to be, in a way that Jet doesn’t like. Their Juno, the thirty-nine year old one, knows how to take up space with his whole personality, and cry because he’s feeling so strongly for another person, and trade quips like he used to be able to trade blaster fire. He is gruff, but kind, in his way. He likes clever turns of phrase and solving puzzles and helping just because he can, even though he pretends not to. He is demanding and loud and settled in himself in a way that Jet admires, even if it is occasionally inconvenient.

He watches Juno from the counter as the eight-year-old finishes his mug of whiskey and somehow manages to hover slightly in Rita’s shadow, even as he’s sitting down. His eyesight isn’t what it used to be but if he squints hard enough, he can make out the individual bones in Juno’s wrists, and the finger-deep dips in his collarbones where there should be more of him, and the tiny divots of burned, glassy tissue where someone has put out almost an entire pack of cigarettes on his shoulder blades. His sweater is hanging off of one shoulder, Jet realizes. Eight year old Juno is significantly smaller than his usual counterpart. Are children supposed to be that small? Jet has very limited knowledge about children. It has been many decades since he was even close to being one himself. He thinks again about his ability to manhandle an adult Juno like a doll and wonders if it is a characteristic the detective will ever grow out of.

“-is that alright, Juno?” Buddy is talking. Jet gives himself the smallest of shakes, bringing himself back to the present.

“Yeah, I guess,” is the sullen reply, punctuated by another gulp of alcohol and a long, weighted pause. “I don’t think it’s smart, though.” Small Juno has the slightest bit of a lisp. Every ‘s’ sound he makes comes out with a very soft ‘th’. 

“Oh?” Buddy quirks her eyebrow. It’s the one hidden by her bangs, so the effect isn’t quite as dramatic as it could have been. “Whatever do you mean, darling?”

Juno shrugs. “Do you know anything about the pyramid other than it’s worth a lot of money and it made me tiny after I touched it?”

“Some,” Buddy admits. “Basic mythology, it’s role in ancient Venusian society. But not as much as I would like, in this current situation.”

Juno nods decisively. “How do you know that if I touch it again it isn’t gonna steal another thirty one years from me and wipe me out of existence completely?”

That’s a valid question, and not one Jet would like to consider at length. The idea of Juno dying is upsetting, to say the least. It appears that the rest of the crew feels the same way, based on the abrupt silence that descends upon all of them. Rita looks a second away from crying, and Ransom doesn’t look far behind her. Vespa looks, for the first time, visibly  _ not _ upset, which says quite a bit about how upset she actually is.

“We do not know what will happen if Juno regains contact with the artifact,” Jet speaks for the first time since Vespa returned to the kitchen with Juno in tow and this family meeting commenced. “Therefore, we should conduct further research into this matter to see if we can uncover any hidden knowledge. I also believe we should keep Juno away from the pyramid until we are certain of its function.”

“I agree with Jet,” Vespa rasps. “Better safe than sorry.”

He catches Juno’s eye as the child is glancing between them all, giving him a small nod. Juno shrinks into himself the tiniest bit, turning back towards the table and curling even tighter around his empty mug like a cloud of nervous gas around a black hole.

Jet remembers the tears of the medbay and the fear in Juno’s voice as he spoke about his mother, thinks about the decades-long gaps in his knowledge and reminds himself that, in the grand scheme of things, he knows very little about Juno Steel.

It’s a well worn thought, at this point. The sting at accompanies it is profoundly new.

* * *

Juno likes familiarity.

He’s a simple gal, he thinks. He likes knowing what all his options are in every given situation, what the rules and expectations are, and how likely he is to get in trouble for breaking them and to what degree. In Oldtown that’s not a problem; It’s better to ghost your dealer than have an argument about switching suppliers, the bars don’t card you if you look older than about six, if you’re gonna steal food it’s better to hit up a big store than a small one, and if you even look at a cop the wrong way you’ll end up in a ditch if your lucky and your family will if you aren’t. These are rules Juno knows by heart, ones he hasn’t had to think about since Mama moved them all out to Oldtown and Mick and Sasha started looking after them.

Juno has to take a second and focus on anything that isn’t Mama, or Mick, or Benten. The feelings he knows are there are still just kind of nameless and amorphous and hovering on the edge of his thoughts. He knows if he gives them time to take shape they’ll be too big to come out of for a while, and he can’t do that while he’s here, on this spaceship, and he doesn’t know the rules. The  _ Carte Blanche  _ is so different from Oldtown that Juno has no idea if he’s going to be able to keep track of them all, or how often he’s going to mess up and how bad.

Did he have responsibilities on the ship? He must have, right? Nobody gets to just hang out on a spaceship and not contribute, he doesn’t think, not unless they have a whole bunch of money. Does he still have to do his thirty-nine year old jobs even though he’s eight? Are they gonna show him how to do them or does he just have to figure it out? Unless they just want him to stay out of the way, in which case he wouldn’t blame them. He’s probably a lot less useful as an eight year old. Should he leave the room if someone comes in to do something? Which rooms are okay for him to be in? Everything looks so different from all the buildings he’s been in before he doesn’t know what he should and shouldn’t touch. Just the thought of messing up something important because he couldn’t keep his stupid hands to himself is making him tremble a little. His fingers clench around the now-empty mug that Miss Vespa had given him in the infirmary. He doesn’t know how she knew he was craving a drink, but he’s not going to say anything. Talking about it might mean he doesn’t get anymore. Fuck. Alcohol is expensive, why would they give him any in the first place? Do they have different rules about what food is? Miss Vespa gave him juice in the med bay- do space pirates eat food, or do they only have drinks? Can he get food if they do have some? Does he have to get his own food? When is he allowed to eat?  _ Is _ he allowed to eat? Are they the kind of people that will tell him he’s not allowed to eat but let him get away with if he can sneak it successfully, like Mrs. Mendoza in second grade computer class, or are they the kind of people that will beat his ass to martian dust if they notice something is missing? Mister Bartane who lives next to Sasha is like that, and they have to run away from him a lot when he gets it into his head that one of them has snuck into his yard and taken something. He’s got bony knuckles and he knows how to use them, and they’re well acquainted with Juno’s ribcage.

Juno needs to stop thinking before his mind goes to a bad place and he shuts down again. He already did that once today, two times would be nigh-unbearable. He’s already embarrassed enough about that, he doesn’t want to make anybody any more annoyed than they must already be by the fact that he messed up and made himself tiny.

They’re all still sitting in the kitchen, long after their “family meeting”, as Miss Buddy calls it, is over. Miss Buddy, he knows, is in charge because she’s the captain. That alone is enough to make Juno wary of her. A title means authority means power means pain. She’s very tall and very pretty and she calls him “Darling”, but she calls everyone darling. Nothing about her makes Juno feel safe. Juno thinks that he shouldn’t touch her, or her stuff, or anything that looks important, because she might get mad at him and shove him out of an airlock. That’s something space pirates do, right? When he can bring himself to look up even a little bit, his eyes catch the way the lights glint off her manicure, a bright carnelian red.

He thinks about clawed, painted fingers and cigarette smoke and decides that today has been too much already, and that he very much would like to get out of here while nobody is trying to stop him.

He sets his mug on the table and shuffles forward until he can hop off the edge of the chair, pushing it in with both hands and then taking the mug to the sink. He can feel eyes on him as he stands on his tip-toes to reach over the counter, and pretends he doesn’t. He keeps his gaze on the floor, trying not to make eye contact with anyone, especially Mister Jet, as he shuffles back to the table.

Mister Jet is another person Juno thinks he’s not going to touch or talk to or look at if he can help it. He’s just- he’s very big. He’s so large that there might not be enough room for Juno in any room that Mister Jet is also in. He’s very tall and he has big, rough hands that look like they could get a real good grip on any part of Juno he pleased. Juno remembers the way Mister Jet had picked him up in that fancy gold room with one hand and then threw them both out of a very high window into a big green car that Mister Peter was driving, and the way he had loomed over him in the med bay, and decides very quickly that he doesn’t want Mister Jet to touch him  _ ever again thank you very much _ .

He reaches out and catches the end of Miss Rita’s sleeve, giving it a little tug to get her attention. She turns and smiles at him. “What’s up, Little Mistah Steel?”

“‘M tired,” he mumbles, eyes still on the floor. She hums.

“You wanna go to your room?” she asks. He nods. She stands and holds out her hand to him, and after a moment he shakes his head and grabs the end of her sleeve again. Her shirt doesn’t have chip flavor powder all over it, after all. She doesn’t make a big stink about it, which he’s grateful for. If he got yelled at for something that small he doesn’t know if he could handle it right now. They exit the kitchen, and Juno turns over his shoulder to throw a shy wave at Miss Vespa, who smirks back at him.

The bedroom Miss Rita takes him to is about as big as the room he shares with Benten, but it’s filled with a lot less stuff, even though it’s just as messy. The walls are gunmetal gray like the rest of the ship, bare with the exception of a small mirror and a shelf above the bed. He can see a few sets of clothes in the open closet and almost all of his drawers are open in some form or another, but he’s too tired to sift through thirty one years worth of decisions he doesn’t remember making, so he lets Miss Rita lead him to the single bed pushed into the corner. He collapses on the already rumpled sheets, pulling one of the pillows over to cling to. It smells like laundry soap. Miss Rita tugs the covers over him, carding one hand through his hair. Just this once, he thinks that’s fine. He doesn’t want to look at her though, he feels bad enough having to bear the weight of everyone’s disappointment so early on when he knows it’s just gonna be worse later, so he just stares at the only closed door on the wall across from him. It’s probably a bathroom.

“If you need anything, you come get me okay?” she says, taking a step backwards towards the door. “I mean it, Juno. I don’t care what time it is.” He nods and gives her a very small thumbs up. She smiles that big, toothy grin of hers again and turns to head for the door. “Goodnight, Little Mista Steel. Sweet dreams!” She hits the light switch on her way out the door and the mechanism shut with a soft hiss, and then Juno is alone in the dark.

Finally, finally, he lets the feelings come, and shoves his face into the pillow as wave after wave of- god,  _ something _ heavy settles in his chest, weighing him down like a big boulder, being eroded by screaming sandy wind in the middle of an unforgiving wasteland. Everything is  _ wrong _ , everything about him and this situation and the world around him. How can anything be okay again? Benzaiten is dead. His baby brother is cold in a grave next to his Mom on a planet he never should have left a billion, billion miles away from where he is. Everything he knows is so far away it might as well not even exist anymore. How many days has it been, since Benten died? Juno thinks his older self probably knows, probably counts every birthday and holiday and every second Saturday and knows exactly how much of his life has been lived alone. That’s not the kind of thing he would forget. Not when the only person in the universe that actually matters is six feet under the rust, older and smarter and kinder and  _ better _ than Juno will ever get to be, and still gone and never coming back. He lets the pillow absorb his tears, wishing he could smother himself but knowing it would be pointless. If thirty nine year old Juno hadn’t managed to do it, eight year old Juno didn’t have a chance in hell.

Without Benten’s comforting warmth at his back, it takes him a long, long time to fall asleep.

* * *

Rita wanders aimlessly towards the rec room, steps heavy and tired and feeling her age as this absolute mess of a day comes to a close. She collapses on the couch, reaching for the remote and flipping it between her fingers, not bothering to turn on the monitor. For once she doesn’t feel like watching a stream, at least not alone, and she doesn’t think anyone else is in the right headspace to watch “Comet Island Adventure 4: The Leviathan Has a Bomb Now and Demands to be Taken Seriously”.

Little Mistah Steel is completely different at eight years old than he was at twenty three, and it’s a different that makes Rita sick to her stomach. At least when Juno was an adult he had  _ some _ coping mechanisms, even if they weren’t in the same star system as healthy or safe. But baby Juno is just- small. Not just physically, either. Small in a way he hasn’t been for years, like he’s afraid to take up space and make decisions and ask for anything. Small like he doesn’t think he deserves anything. Small like he was after Diamond, but worse now because he’s a child, he’s a  _ baby _ , and she’s the one that did this to him. She’s the one that sat down and stared him down in both of his eyes and told him that his brother is dead and his mother is responsible and that his dreams of being a police officer don’t work out and that his life is nothing like he ever wanted it to be.

She doesn’t realize she’s shaking until Jet is there on the couch next to her, taking the remote from her trembling hands and turning on a random stream. He settles in next to her, close enough that she can feel his warmth but far enough away that she could lean away and it wouldn’t be a big deal. She feels a thread of warmth for her large friend, letting herself fall sideways until she collides gently with his arm.

“Are you alright, Rita?”

She sighs. “Yeah. No. Yeah.” He moves his arms out from under her head, moving it instead to wrap around the back of the couch. She rests her head on his ribcage instead.

“Those are conflicting answers.” His voice rumbles through the entire side of her head.

“This has been a pretty conflict filled day, Mistah Jet,” she shrugs, letting her eyes watch the stream but not putting any real effort into paying attention to it. “I had to tell Little Mistah Steel about a lot of real terrible stuff that happened to him today, and I know it hurt him pretty bad to hear. I don’t think he’s okay, and if he’s not okay I can’t be okay, y’know?”

Jet nods. “I understand. Do you want to talk about it?”

“Nah,” she mumbles. “Not tonight. I just want everything to go back to normal and I want Juno to be better again.” She lets out a little huff of air that could be a laugh but probably isn’t. “None of you except maybe Mistah Ransom know how bad Mistah Steel was, before he lost his eye for the first time. The amount of progress he made in the last year is- gosh, Mistah Jet, it makes me wanna cry just thinkin’ about it. He’s a completely different person. He  _ apologizes _ for thing now, when he’s made a mistake. He stopped drinking in the office, after that debacle in Newtown. He even talked once about thinkin’ about goin’ to a professional for his issues, which is more than he ever did in all the years I’ve known him.” She sniffs, wipes away a tear and disguises it by tucking a lock of hair behind her ear. “And now all of that is gone, and he might not ever get it back, and things were just starting to turn around for him. It ain’t fair!”

“Juno will be fine,” Jet says, patting her shoulder. “All of us are determined to return him to his correct state. We will resolve this issue eventually, and in the meantime we will make sure that Juno is safe and as happy as we can make him. Everything is going to be fine.”

“I sure hope so, Mistah Jet,” Rita says, finally settling completely into the couch and focusing on the stream, letting it carry her thoughts away from the terrible, terrible day they’ve all had.

Unseen in the doorway, Peter Ransom turns and pads silently down hall back towards his room.

**Author's Note:**

> thanks for reading! drop a kudos or a comment on your way out if you enjoyed it. once again, you can find me on tumblr @purple-sea-dragon if you wanna scream at me :3 until next time!!


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